


In Light of It All

by beingbaz



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, F/M, Self-Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 06:59:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beingbaz/pseuds/beingbaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione is lost, hopeless, and a captive of Voldemort. What can the future hold for her anymore?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Light of It All

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All copyrights belong to their respective owners. I make no money from this, and merely wrote it for fun.  
> Written because the plot bunnies refused to leave me alone in 2006.
> 
> As always, no beta.

She started the water for her bath and watched the steam rise, her eyes dull, her body screaming in pain. She stripped off her clothes, and before stepping in, lay the objects she'd brought with her next to it.

She lay back in the tub, glared at the ceiling, and wondered what it would feel like to die.

The water was still scalding hot, just the way she needed it. She knew what it felt like to have filth coating your skin, to feel it seeping into your every pore.

The tap by her feet mocked her, and the ceiling threatened to drop down on her again. For a moment, she wondered if she was simply going insane. Then she merely filled her lungs with air, and sunk beneath the burning water, wishing to be clean again.

She wanted to open her eyes, that even they might finally be clean once more, but wouldn't risk losing her sight to the water. She'd already lost enough in her life, she was not going to let this torment beat her completely that she wandered even more blindly in this world.

The water grew tepid and her skin chilly, so she let more than half of it drain before plugging it back up and turning the hot water on high. She hissed when she felt the first burn of it, as she marveled over scarred legs that had gone back to pale from angry pink.

She pulled her legs back to her, sitting upright, and waited for the heat to hit her again. She looked at the two objects she'd brought with her into the bathroom.

"I love your hair," he'd whispered earlier in the night, holding it tightly in his fist as he fucked her. "It's wild and delicious. It's mine, you're mine," he'd grunted. She'd merely turned her head away and stared at the far wall, telling herself she did what she had to do. Even surrendering her body to the one she hated most.

She shook her head, making it hurt, and refused to think of those she loved in this moment. She reached down and picked up the scissors, taking it to her wild hair and hacking at it. She cut with no care for style. She didn't know who would be punished for this act of defiance, if he would hurt one of them because she.... Still, she didn't quit cutting 'til she had barely two inches of brown bushy hair left on her head.

She hadn't noticed the water had seeped up her waist 'til it touched her abused breasts, making her gasp aloud. She turned off the heat, and before she could think about it, she dunked underneath the water. Burning again, a cleansing heat she hoped would leave her untouched once they were free. If they were ever free.

The water was tinged pink, red, by the time she drained it again. She cut herself to feel something that was completely hers once again. Her captor never commented on it, so she'd kept on doing it every time she felt the urge to really feel. To feel something that he didn't control. She'd laid in the water 'til the cuts she'd made with a piece of smuggled broken glass had quit bleeding so profusely. Then she drained the water, slightly refilled the tub again, and felt better with this new burning. Afterward she toweled off roughly, then donned the robe he'd given her with its malevolent insignia on the left breast, gathered her things, and left the bathroom. She hated the robe, of course, but it was all she'd been allowed to wear since she'd been taken. She walked slowly to the room she'd been given and wished with all her might she had her wand.

Hermione Granger, Voldemort's whore, walked to the window she couldn't break no matter how often or hard she tried, and stared out.

Ron, she thought, staring out, wishing she knew where she was. She gained a small comfort from thinking his name. Neither Ron nor Harry had been taken yet. They were still out there, fighting the good fight, and it was a small comfort to her.

When the door behind her opened, she shivered automatically.

"Cold, my dear?" asked that hideous voice, and she turned immediately as he'd painstakingly taught her, and curtseyed.

"A bit, my lord," she replied in a tremulous voice.

Voldemort walked up to her slowly, and without any expression on his face, backhanded her across the room. She knew he loved hurting her this way, this muggle way. Though he claimed to hate all things non-magical, he thought it a special insult to her to use only his hands, mouth, and dick as weapons against her. Though he'd used magic on her when she'd first arrived. She'd done her best to be stoic. Before he'd called Ginny Weasely into the room. Ginny had quickly curtseyed, and asked her lord how best she might serve. Hermione had been horrified to see this girl, one she'd thought of as a baby sister, who'd been missing and presumed dead for months, simpering to the bane of all existence.

Before an hour had passed, Ginny was a sobbing mess on the floor, begging her lord to tell her how she had displeased. Hermione's stomach wanted to revolt, watching this, as it had the entire time. And Voldemort had turned to Hermione, and asked if she liked what she saw. He'd then informed her she would see it every day, several times a day, if she would not submit to his will. Though it made bile rise in her throat, Hermione agreed to submit.

She'd been a virgin, Hermione thought, staring up at Voldemort's enraged face from the floor, her cheek burning from where he'd hit her. She'd meant to give her virginity to Ron, eventually, but Voldemort had taken that small joy from them. Not that night, of course. She fought, she ran, she tried to hide. And then Ginny had been brought back in, and Voldemort had raped her viciously, without any kind of mercy. And after he came, he ordered Ginny to her knees before him. He'd cast Crucio upon them both for over an hour, back and forth, back and forth. Ginny begged. Hermione tried not to, but she begged in the end as well. She'd promised anything if he'd stop the pain, if he'd let Ginny go. And had ended up gagging around his dick in her mouth and throat before the night was up. He hadn't used magic again after that night.

"My lord," Hermione inquired from the floor, "what have I done?"

He towered over her, and whispered softly, "Darling, whatever have you done with your hair?"

She reached up instinctively, then lowered her eyes to his feet. "I'm sorry, my lord. I was not thinking."

Voldemort cursed. "I was told you were intelligent, darling, and you continue to disappoint me so." A heartbeat later and he cast a spell, and she winced when her hair came back into view. He'd forced it to grow out again, for his pleasure of course.

"Thank you, my lord," she whispered. "Forgive my foolishness."

"Not tonight," he snapped, and her eyes whipped back up to hers. "I have a present for you, my darling, and would have given it to you tomorrow but for this. I think it is best presented now, don't you think?" He grabbed her arm, forcing her up painfully, and called out to one of the Death Eaters who he'd apparently left outside the door.

Her knees gave out on her, when she saw the gift Voldemord had brought to her. He let her fall, some sort of smile playing on his face

"Ron," she whispered, looking at him with suddenly tear-filled eyes.

"Hermione," he'd whispered back before he was chucked to the floor before Voldemort, his bleeding and battered body lying there limply.

"Happy anniversary, darling," Voldemort said to her before stepping over the body. "In honor of our one year anniversary, I give you this useless muggle-lover for the night. Do with him what you will. You'll both be mine again in the morning. Now don't cry too much, my little mudblood darling. Be grateful." His voice took on a hard edge. "Thank me."

"Thank you, my lord," Hermione whispered, leaking eyes locked on Ron's still form. She stared as Ron shook his head slowly, still lying there, as though trying to gather his wits.

"No, darling," Voldemort said in the voice she knew that to disobey meant nothing but pain for her. She looked up and met his eyes, then tracked her eyes down his body to where he'd exposed his penis. "Come and thank me properly."

Hermione's lips trembled as she attempted to ascertain what he meant. She crawled forward to him, and whimpered, "How does my lord think I should thank him best?" This was one of Voldemort's games. He enjoyed humiliation of those he deemed lower than himself. The Death Eater at his side was nothing, another minion. But with one he knew she truly cared for in the room, it would be degradation at his finest to his own mind.

Voldemort smiled. It was terrible. "Take my wand into your mouth, mudblood." He wagged his hardening dick before her. Hermione opened her mouth but hesitated, knowing Ron could see if he were fully awake. "Mudblood darling, my whore," Voldemort said, then forced his cock into her open mouth and holding her there when she gagged on it and stuggled for breath. "Suck me."

She closed her eyes as the tears trickled down and did her best to suck his erection as he fucked her mouth, his awful hands holding her head still. She breathed when she could, through her nose, and coughed around his dick when she couldn't get enough air.

"Look at me, boy," Voldemort commanded, and Hermione knew exactly who he was talking to. To her shame, she knew Ron was awake, was watching what was being done to her. What she did. "I've turned her into my whore, and no matter what you think you have with her, she is mine." He rocked his hips harshly into her face, and she could scent his disgusting pubic hair every time she breathed. She knew he was close. She wanted to kiss and cuddle Ron, to hold him, to love him, but hated the thought of kissing him with Voldemort's semen fresh in her gullet.

Voldemort yanked her head away painfully, and she gasped for air, then closed her eyes and sputtered as Voldemort came on her face. He forced her face down and she kissed the wooden flooring beneath his feet.

Hermione knew what he wanted. He wanted to Ron to see her submit to him, so he would know that Voldemort had complete control. Hermione took less than half a second to decide. To gain knowledge from the outside world, she would do it. To have a night alone with Ron, she would have done anything. This was simple.

"Thank you very much, my lord," she said, humbling her voice as much as she was able.

"Good," Voldemort said, then left the room with a billowing of robes that reminded her so much of Snape, she'd have laughed if her throat hadn't hurt so much. She heard the door close and lock from her position on the floor, and only then hurried to Ron's still form.

His eyes were huge, terrified, appalled. Then he blinked, and tried to sit up. Hermione helped him up, then moved with him to her bed. She wouldn't look into his eyes once they were seated.

"You do what you have to," Ron murmured, his voice so quite she could barely hear it, "to survive a war."

Hermione broke down and sobbed then, noises she hadn't made in ages tearing themselves out of her raw throat. Ron took off his shirt, and wiped at her face with it, apoligizing for it's not-so-clean state. Blood and dirt were on it, but she could see through her tears he tried to find the cleanest place before swiping the cum off of her. Ron pulled her fiercely against him, kissing her temple, and she cried indelicately on his shoulder.

"It's okay, Hermione, shh," he said. As if realized what he'd just said as absurd, he corrected, "It'll be okay, anyway. Once the sun rises. You'll see." Hermione eased back, her eyes as red as her face, and took his shoulders in a firm grip.

"I don't see how you can say that," she retorted, looking at him directly.

"Shh," he cautioned. "Just trust me, okay?"

"Of course I trust you," Hermione replied, her eyes imploring him to just tell her how it would be okay. How any of this, any of them, could ever be okay again.

"Then just believe me, and don't ask me how. They're listening," he whispered, his eyes searching her for understanding.

In her mind, Hermione felt that a light had been lit. He wouldn't tell her, he couldn't. She understood that, she thought she really did. His being her must be part of some plan. But she hated the uncertainty gnawing in her belly.

She dismissed her thoughts. They had this one night, and she would not waste it on maybe.

Though her lips were still red from being used, her body sore, her cuts hurting and reminding her of her earlier evening, she kissed him.

Ron didn't hesitate, despite that she'd had the world's enemy in her mouth, his semen on her face, and who knew what else Voldemort had done to her in the past. Ron loved Hermione, despite everything, in spite of everything that had come between them.

Ron kissed her tenderly, gently stroking his hands up and down her robed back. She broke away at that feeling, and violently flung the robe from her, leaving her naked to his gaze. Ron's eyes widened to see the numerous cuts on her, scars on her, bruises on her. But he didn't reject her when she greedily took his hair in her hands and pulled him in for a violent kiss. Her hands were everywhere after that. On his exposed back, his arms, his chest. Before long, she'd stripped him bare, but he let her, knowing she wouldn't do anything she didn't really want to.

She gazed at him for a long moment after removing his pants and undershorts, causing his cock to swell. She locked eyes with him and said only one thing, a trembling question: "Mine?"

"Always," Ron replied, kissing her softly. "I haven't.... There's been no one...."

Hermione shuddered. Then she pushed Ron on his back and straddled him. "Burn me," she said as she guided his erection into her. "Purify me. Make me yours, Ron. Like I should have been all along." The last was said on a quavering whisper, and Ron's hands tightened where they gripped her hips.

"You've always been mine, Hermione," he replied, in just as quiet a voice. A cry, not quite laugh, not quite sob, broke from her lips and she kissed him then, long and deep. Then began to move atop him, making his breath come in pants. As he'd said, he'd never had sex with anyone. He didn't know how long he could last, but he was determined to make her feel good.

"Tell me what gives you pleasure, 'Mione. Tell me how," he begged. Hermione confessed that she didn't know. They'd only been officially together for four months before she'd been taken. They'd done only a bit of sexual exploring, and Ron didn't believe he was very good with that previous knowledge. So he searched his mind for every single thing he'd ever read about sex, then moved his hand in the hopes of finding her clitoris. When she arched back sharply and her inner muscles clamped down on his cock, making his breath rush out, he believed he found it.

Eventually both came, her first by some miracle, the pulsing of her inner walls forcing him to come heavily inside her. Hermione collapsed on top of him, and they lay there like that for a time, his hardness softening in the afterglow, his hands moving lazily up and down her back. Hermione placed soft, light kisses to his shoulder and neck, suddenly feeling content and tired.

"I don't care why we've been given this night by... You-Know-Who," she said, refusing to call Voldemort her lord in the light of these recent events, with Ron still in her bed. "I'm just glad we've finally had this."

Ron let out a breath. "I just wish it had happened before, or under better circumstances." Despite the danger they were in, and the horrifying things that had happened to him earlier in the day, Ron yawned widely. The two dozed for a long while after that, speaking in quiet whispers, sharing gentle kisses.

"Sun's coming up," Ron said, his voice stuck in his throat. Hermione's eyes whipped from his to the sunlight on the horizon.

She felt the air still, and then watched with wide eyes as Ron's discarded shirt flew up against the unbreakable window and just held there for a moment. She blinked - and the shirt was gone, without a sound.

"What...?" she said, but that's all that got out before a deafening boom filled the air. Ron jumped from the bed at that moment, and hurried to his pants as best he could manage despite his pain. The Death Eaters who'd captured him, and Voldemort himself had tortured him, so this was no easy task. But after what he and Hermione had shared, Ron realized, he suddenly felt invincible.

Ron yanked on his pants and closed them up, then wrapped Hermione in the coverlet from the bed when she refused to put the robe back on. "Come on," he urged her, and she just stared at the hand he held out. Even as the took his hand with her own, she shook her head in confusion. Ron merely closed his eyes, told her to hold on, and much to the dismay of her stomach and head, Apparated.

She stumbled away when they stopped, and looked around. She was in yet another place unfamiliar, but she didn't understand. This place was dark, lit by a single candle that illuminated a single bed.

"What's going on, Ron? What did you do?!" she demanded.

"Harry did it," he replied. "He figured out how to kill Voldemort."

Hermione's eyes felt as wide as saucers as she stared at him, and hadn't even realized her mouth was hanging open until he nudged her chin with a hand. He led her to the bed, explaining that this had been his hideout for a while now, and was completely safe. He assured her of that several times before continuing his previous explanation.

"Remember how we'd figured out how to deal with all the horcruxes but for two, Nagini, and the locket? Harry figured out where the locket was. It was in the Black house, Kreacher had squirreled it away into his little hidey-hole. Harry wanted to kick himself for ages, after that, and then he wanted to murder that bleeding house elf. You'd been gone about seven months then.

"Then he somehow contacted the bloody family of this snake that owed him a favor from when he was a kid. See, Harry's nineteen years of age, and you'd think he'd have been forgotten by now by a couple of snake generations. But no, he was a family story. The boy-wizard who'd saved their Grande Abuelo, as they called the snake Harry'd freed. The favor was this: Get into Voldemort's stronghold when it was time, and destroy Nagini. The snakes were left to how, they simply had to make sure the other was dead."

"You'd think one snake wouldn't take kindly to killing off another of its own kind," Hermione interjected, feeling tired from the events of the evening, tired from the storytelling. Despite what had been done to her, though, she was still one of the brightest women in her country.

"I'm getting to that," Ron replied. "Harry actually explained to the family member they'd sent as intermediary - and I don't know how he got in contact with them, nor how they got to Harry - he explained what Nagini was, and the threat she posed to the world because of that. All of this in Parseltongue, mind you, so Harry had to translate for me later. But because of the debt they felt they owed, and the threat they agreed Nagini posed, they joined with Harry and our forces.

"So Harry got together with the Order and destroyed the locket, then explained his plan to the others. Despite disagreement and possible dissension, the Order eventually came around."

"Plan?" Hermione slurred, half falling asleep, half trying despite her to stay awake and listen.

Ron continued to explain, urging her to lie down with him, then curling around her back and holding her. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, had proposed to use Ron as a homing device, essentially - he'd had to explain to several wizards what a homing device was before he'd been able to continue. Ron's blood would act as a talisman for their forces, telling them where to attack. Of course, this plan had depended on one thing. A piece of Voldemort to activate it.

Hermione dimly heard this, and realized how lucky it was then, that Voldemort had come on her versus in her and spoiled it. When she said as much to Ron, his face went red.

"I could have done without that," he said quietly, his voice an angry growl. "He spat on me after torturing me earlier, right on the neck, and it dripped onto my bloody shirt. The spell was activated then." Hermione shuddered at the thought of his torture and refused to think of all the tortures she had gone through in the past year. Tortures, indignities, pain, and cruelties all of which had been inflicted upon her threatened to rise, and she clutched at Ron's arms which were wrapped around her.

"That boom you heard was the wizards breaking down Voldemort's wards," Ron said quietly as she shook in his arms. Briefly she marveled at this boy - man - who had once been afraid to say that name now said it without any fear, but with a heavy dose of heartfelt malice. "The spy we planted told us how to get past them, but Harry wanted them destroyed. I probably should have waited to see what happened with the snakes, and Nagini, and how Harry's done in Voldemort, but...."

"You saved me instead."

"I love you, Hermione. What else could I have done?" Hermione felt Ron shrug as he said it, and the light she felt inside her burned so brightly in her mind, it felt like a purifying fire, burning away everything tainted. She knew the time she'd spent as Voldemort's whore wasn't gone, knew she'd have to deal with it eventually. But in this one moment, knowing he'd come to save her in spite of incredible odds, knowing he had in fact saved her, that he loved her, she felt... clean.

All the way down to her soul clean.

"I love you, too, Ron. So very, very much," she whispered, and turned to hold him closely in the dark.

 

Epilogue

The war had been over for years now, and Hermione took a moment out of her morning routine to look out of her kitchen window. She saw her own reflection in the dim sunlight, and took pleasure in the sight of her rounded belly. Her child, her and Ron's child, soon to be born. As she rubbed her hands soothingly over it, for the child that grew inside her was awake and restless, she marveled over what had happened to her in the time since her rescue.

When Voldemort's people had kidnapped her, snapped her wand before her eyes, tortured her relentlessly, she'd wanted to die. When she become the whore of the the most hated wizard ever known, she'd wanted to die to escape the filth he'd laid on her. Only when Ron had saved her had she found hope again, felt clean again, she thought. And now, at last, here they were. Married, living in a lovely house by the sea near a quiet little town, expecting their first child.

Harry had killed Voldemort, in a final standoff he refused to give full details to. All he would say is that with all of Voldemort's horcruxes destroyed, as the plan he'd worked out with the snakes had worked to kill Nagini, Voldemort's magic was weakened to that of a wizard barely above a squib. He'd killed Voldemort, somehow, which left nothing more than a stinking pile of ashes that had once been the Dark Lord.

The spy they'd set up inside the Death Eaters, Draco Malfoy, had survived that final battle. Hermione had been told that Malfoy had come to them after learning of his mother's death at Voldemort's hands, and pledged his allegiance to the side of good. Though watched closely by those who didn't trust a Malfoy, any Malfoy, he'd miraculously gained Harry's unstinting loyalty. The information he'd provided to the Order had most certainly helped to turned the tide in the war, truth be told.

Hermione smiled to think of Harry happily cuddled up in connubial bliss with a once hated enemy. Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, married, she mused. And with two adopted daughters. Who'd have ever thought of that?

"What are you about, love?" she heard Ron mumble sleepily from behind her. Hermione turned, and gazed at him, love shining in her eyes. His hair was mussed from sleep, his undershorts rode low on his bony hips, and his eyes were tired. By everything she was, she thought, she loved this man.

"Just thinking about how all this came to be, Ron. Just thinking."

"Mm," he said, and came to hug and kiss her as he usually did in the mornings when she was thoughtful like this. Soft, and sweet, and utterly loving. "How's our baby doing in there?"

"Impatient to be born, I think. He's been swimming laps in here all morning. Woke me up," Hermione said with a small chuckle.

"She," Ron corrected, resting a hand on her belly.

"And how do you know?" Hermione retorted, a smile warming her face.

"Father's instinct."

Hermione grinned, and kissed him. "As you like," she laughed. "We'll see."

Ron bustled about the kitchen, getting a pot of tea started, and poking about the refrigerator for something for breakfast. Hermione nudged him out of the way and gathered up the ingredients to make them omelets.

When she cracked a third egg, she looked up to see Ron simply looking at her with a small smile and soft eyes.

"What?" she asked, when he stepped up to her and without a word simply took her into his arms. He pressed a kiss to her temple, and she closed her eyes, breathing in his scent.

"I love you, Hermione Weasely."

She held her breath a moment and savored those words. Then she said briskly, "I love you, too, Ron. Now get out of my way or there'll no breakfast for you."

Ron laughed and stepped away from her, to take up the teapot that had begun to whistle.

She cracked another egg, and thought, No matter how we got to this point, no matter what we've endured... I'm so lucky to know this joy with him.

In her heart the love for him and the child they'd made burned so brilliantly, she knew nothing could ever sully her life again.


End file.
